For the past two years, I’ve made it a point to come down to Mumbai from Pune to celebrate both Lil white mouse’s and my birthday. Just because I was in Bangalore, it doesn’t mean I would let this change!

So, once again I booked my tickets via Go Air. However, this time it wasn’t a Rs.3,000 return as I got it last month. It was a full 2k more and well, it is well worth it!

I booked the Airlift, which is a really good investment when you are travelling to Bangalore airport which is a good 50+ km from city-limits. My mistake was that I booked the cab for 8am, which arrived earlier than that and I landed up at the airport about 9am! And, as luck would have it, my flight was delayed by a good 30minutes, so my wait at the airport was well over three hours, in which I spent a good amount of time in the Barista at the airport.

It was also interesting to watch people wearing masks all over the airport in fear of contracting H1N1 which seems to have ravaged the country! This was even more in Mumbai which is also one of the epicenters of the pandemic. In my opinion, the whole thing has been overhyped, since, there are more persons dying of other illness than the total suspected H1N1 cases. Anyway, some protection is better than none!

Being Independence day on the 15th, there was extra security checks at the airport. In fact, our luggage was checked twice. Once by the normal security and once by the Go Air personnel. On reaching the plane, there was a lot of confusion and I gathered some information that there was confusion about the number of passengers. We finally took off almost an hour late, but the flight was really smooth and we reached Mumbai rather quickly.

I dozed off on the flight when the exhaustion finally crept up on me! I landed at Mumbai airport and had to walk a small distance to get an autorickshaw guy willing to go by the meter and not trying to fleece me! Gosh! They think I am not from Mumbai!

Found a rickshaw guy home and I first stopped off at my local cable operator to renew the internet connection at home. Lil white mouse came over later in the afternoon to spend some quality time with me.

I went to meet Sneha afterwards and Arijit joined us for a quick dinner at Pizza Hut.

And, yesterday was Lil white mouse’s birthday celebrations. But, that’s for another post!

I managed to watch Transformers last week, making it my first movie in Bangalore since I came here more than three months back. My initial plan was to work on Saturday morning from home, but al my hopes were dashed when the electricity out here conked off at 10am and didn’t return till 5pm!

If I thought that Pune was bad with its power problems, then Bangalore has started to win! The compromise was that I had to work the whole of Sunday. The good part was I caught up on much needed sleep.

Vincent and me went over to the BSNL office in the afternoon to apply for a new broadband connection. Airtel turned out to be a really crappy alternative, when they found it “not feasible” to give us a new connection. We were surprised at the efficiency and speed of BSNL, which, despite being a government firm, has some very efficient staff.

Airtel has turned out to be a rather painful connection when I received a message a few days back billing me 50 bucks for downloading some game that I didn’t even know existed. Calling up the helpline is rather useless, nor is visiting their help center. I’ve been asked to check back on the day of the new billing cycle! I’m well aware of others in the past as well of being incorrectly billed by Airtel.

We had plans to catch the movie in the evening. However, before that we headed off to Garuda mall and spent sometime in the Barista out there. It has been a while since I went to a Barista and every time I go there, I realize that I prefer it anytime over Cafe Coffee Day. Will make sure I go off to a Barista when I go to Mumbai next.

We caught the movie at that place. 200 bucks was worth it for Transformers, however, it just isn’t fair when Lil white mouse watches it at half the price in Mumbai!

We headed home after the “late” night show and crashed rather immediately, since both Vincent and me had to go to work the next day. Spent a long long long week in office with several late nights. Friday was the only relatively light day.

Today was spent at home. The persons from BSNL came over today and fixed the phone line. The modem should be here in a few days and we’ll be hooked onto a 512kbps unlimited internet connection!

We initially at plans to go shopping, but laziness and sleep won over it. So, possibly next week, I’ll target a few shops that are offering sales.

Tomorrow shall be yet another lazy day. However, I do need to put in a few hours of work. May also work on some more of my WordPress plugins. I already released an update of Ajax Edit Comments today.

My experience with Big Bazaar during Diwali remains unchanged. Three years back I had a horrible experience at Big Bazaar and this year it just worsened.

As I mentioned yesterday, I intended to go shopping to Big Bazaar at Lower Parel today in order to redeem some discount coupons.

Considering the Diwali season, Big Bazaar has tonnes of sales and offers to entice the Diwali shopper. It is also the time the store is extremely crowded.

However, I was hoping that I would find atleast a single pair of shoes since that is currently a necessity.

Found one, a Puma model. However it wasn’t very comfortable. Hunted throughout the store for anything worthwhile and gave up!

Dropped into the Barista in Phoenix Mills itself where we spent an hour before I found my way home and she to her Aunt’s place.

I intend to go shopping in November when there will hopefully be no sales and hopefully they have something to buy! A lot of hope…

Did a real lot this weekend!

Had choir practice as usual on Friday which was pretty normal. Woke up nice and late on Saturday morning

Plans with Madam C were not sure, but headed over to Melody‘s place for work.

She had prepared some awesome Goa Sausages (and she didn’t blog about it).

Plans with Madam C didn’t materialize in the end and I headed home around 7pm. Spent the rest of the evening working for a new site. Will post details about it when it is done.

But, plans with Anjali materialized. We had decided to go out for dinner followed by The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which was running at Fame Adlabs.

However, mom announced that we had pomfret curry for dinner. Just couldn’t resist, so we decided to skip eating out and instead just go for the movie!

Set off around 9.30pm, picked up the tickets and then spent some time at Barista in Lokhandwala. It sure has been quite a while since I have been to Barista.

The movie turned out to be quite interesting. Scary and not gross. Read my review.

The movie got over only past 1.30am and we had a rather freezing ride back home. Reached here and decided to chitchat till 3am (you need to watch the movie for this).
Did so and then said good night

Woke up nice and late on Sunday. Didn’t even realize that it was 10.30am!

Had to meet Madam C at 12am and was a little late. Immediately headed over to Fun Republic, where After the Sunset was running.

Turned out to be a rather moderate movie.

We had lunch in Fun Republic itself. But, Madam C as usual was hungry and so we went to the Bandra Pizza Hut. Wasn’t feeling too hungry but the pizzas were really really tempting! The pic on the side justifies my decision, doesn’t it?

Dropped her home after this and rushed off to church for the 6pm mass. Reached well in time and did the First Reading.

Mass was rather nice. Had a good time. Chose to spend the rest of the evening at home designing the site. It seems a bit tougher than I expected. However, what has to be done, has to be done.

This has turned out to be one big post. Well I really need to post more often!

Went to watch Troy with Madam D today. I had heard mediocre reviews about it, and went for the movie without expecting much.

Picked her up from Bhandup and we went off to Imax Multiplex in Wadala.

The movie was really awesome. It is based on Homer’s Illiad. I haven’t read the book, but a much abridged story tale version of it titled Tales by Homer over ten years back and hence knew the story of Troy somewhat.

Knowing the story wasn’t a spoiler, but watching the movie brought life to the story tale I read as a little boy.

The movie has an amazing star cast with Brad Pitt playing Achilles, Eric Bana playing Hector, Orlando Bloom playing Paris, Diane Kruger playing Helen, Rose Byrne playing Briseis, Peter O’Toole playing Priam, the King of Troy, Sean Bean playing Odysseus and Brian Cox playing Agamemnon.

The fight sequences were spectacular, especially the one in the end between Hector and Achilles.

The quotes in the movie were good with few memorable ones. I loved the one where Hector tells Paris when he brings Helen back with him on the ship to Troy:

You say you’re willing to die for love but you know nothing about dying and you know nothing about love!

Madam D loved the scene between Achilles and Priam in Achilles tent, when Priam requests Achilles to return the body of Hector so that he may complete the proper burial rituals.

The movie is three hours long, but is definitely a must see:O

After the movie we went to the Barista at Chembur and were there for nearly three hours, after which I briefly stopped over at her place before getting back home.
Had to visit the doc, because my throat pain got worse. I can’t talk too much! That is really a punishment for me:O